Modern pollen analysis and prehistoric beer - A lecture by Jørgen Troels-Smith, March 1977

Accepted Manuscript Modern pollen analysis and prehistoric beer - A lecture by Jørgen Troels-Smith, March 1977

J. Troels-Smith, C. Jessen, M.F. Mortensen PII: DOI: Reference:

S0034-6667(18)30073-3 doi:10.1016/j.revpalbo.2018.09.006 PALBO 3999

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Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology

Received date: Revised date: Accepted date:

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Please cite this article as: J. Troels-Smith, C. Jessen, M.F. Mortensen , Modern pollen analysis and prehistoric beer - A lecture by Jørgen Troels-Smith, March 1977. Palbo (2018), doi:10.1016/j.revpalbo.2018.09.006

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Modern pollen analysis and prehistoric beer - a lecture by Jørgen Troels-Smith, March 1977. Troels-Smith, J. †, Jessen, CA. and Mortensen, M.F.,A*

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The National Museum of Denmark, Environmental Archaeology and Materials Science. I.C.Modewegs Vej. 2800 Kongens Lyngby, Denmark. * Corresponding author: [email protected]

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Abstract During a symposium to celebrate the publication of the results of the first pollen analysis by Lennart von Post in 1916 in Stockholm in November 2016 it was decided that first-hand reports by pioneers in the field should be published. J. Troels-Smith (1916-1991) was one of these pioneers and in 1977 he gave a lecture to The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences describing both the development of the field at the National Museums bog laboratory and their investigation into the remains of the Egtveds Girls mead. The lecture is

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translated here verbatim and he recounts the developments from a time when they could only identify around 10 pollen taxa to being able to identify around 400, how they confirmed the wall architecture of

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grains by slicing at 1/1000 mm and his work with Joh. Iversen to devise and publish a fixed terminology for pollen features. The work on the pollen from the Egtved Girls bark bucket is described along with

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comparative finds from the early Bronze Age and concludes the bucket contained a mixture of beer, fruit wine and honey, possibly as mead, with many plant fibres of bread wheat and cowberry or cranberry.

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Keywords: Pollen analysis; palynology; Troels-Smith; mead; Egtved Girl.

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Introduction

During the ‘Centenary (1916-2016) of pollen analysis and the legacy of Lennart von Post’ symposium held in Stockholm (24-25 November 2016) it was decided to publish first-hand reports by researchers who had influenced research into pollen analysis in the course of their careers. The palaeobotanists and palynologists present were encouraged to look at the history of their field and document some of the

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developments because:

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“As people retire or die, we are losing their biographies and wisdom, not to mention knowledge of the motivations and influences which guided their palaeobotanical and palynological

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careers.....articles which record and analyse the history and developments which constitute the building blocks of our research fields. This might include such themes as methodology, ideas,

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nomenclature, bibliometrics, correspondence, inter- and intra-disciplinary sociological relationships – in short, the history and historiography of our science." (Edwards, 2016)

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Thanks to the archive of National Museum of Denmark, we can here contribute with the history of the field as seen in 1977 by one of its pioneers, Jørgen Troels-Smith (1916-1991). Troels-Smith led the museum’s bog laboratory for the whole of his working life (Fig.1a, b), beginning his career in 1934 as a student of

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Johannes Iversen and contributing to the development of modern pollen analysis throughout the 30s, 40s and 50s. He is perhaps most remembered for his work in creating a standard terminology for pollen

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analysis (Iversen and Troels-Smith, 1950), his classification system for the description of lake and peat

Smith, 1953, 1955b).

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deposits (Troels-Smith, 1955a) and his work on the Neolithisation of Denmark and Switzerland (Troels-

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Some of this research is described by Troels-Smith himself in a previously unpublished transcript of a lecture given to The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters in 1977 and stored in the archive of the National Museum of Denmark. The lecture was titled ‘The Egtved Girls Mead’ but Troels-Smith uses its first half to give a retrospective of the development of pollen analysis from the mid-1930s until the beginning of the 1950s. He follows this by presenting the then current investigation into the mead remains found in the bark bucket from the famous oak coffin burial at Egtved, central Jutland, Denmark. Troels-Smiths also mentions other researchers in the field, many of whom are known from the pollen literature such as Johannes Iversen, Knud Jessen, Svend Thorkild Andersen and John Birks. But also mentioned are two less well known researchers, Børge Brorson-Christensen and Svend Jørgensen who, working as assistants were in practice responsible for the vast majority of the sediment descriptions, sampling and pollen analysis (Fig.2a, b). As they were working at a time when it was not customary to credit assistants with authorship, much of their contribution is not generally known and they deserve a short introduction here.

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT The first assistant Troels-Smith employed was Børge Brorson-Christensen and always known as ‘Brorson’. Brorson was trained as an artist at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and his main task initially was to describe and document the many unknown pollen types they continually found. These new pollen (known as ‘X’ pollen) were given a name, often a girl’s name, and documented initially as drawings and later, as the difficulties of obtaining film and printing paper eased after World War II, with photographs. Brorson’s rare talent for transforming a 2D microscope image into a 3D drawing on paper produced essentially miniartworks which described and highlighted the important features and characteristics of each pollen grain.

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More than 100 of Brorson’s pollen drawings are stored in the archive and are now available for use at http://natmus.dk/organisation/bevaring-naturvidenskab/

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miljoearkaeologi-materialeforskning/pollenanalyse/pollentegninger/ citing Brorson-Christensen and this paper (Fig.3a, b). Two of Brorson’s’ major publications on pollen analysis are Measurement as a Means of

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Identifying Fossil Pollen (Christensen, 1946) and Om mikrotomsnit af pollenexiner (On the microtome slicing of pollen exines)(Christensen, 1949). Brorson had many diverse talents and in 1948 he was headhunted to

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lead the new conservation department at the museum where he later developed a method to conserve the recently discovered Viking ship in Roskilde Fjord (Christensen, 1970) and also conserved the iron age

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bog body ‘Tollund Man’.

The second important person mentioned was Svend Jørgensen who worked as Troels-Smith’s assistant from 1948 until he retired in 1974. With a 50 - 60 hour working week and few tasks except to count pollen

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there cannot be many pollen analysts who have counted more pollen than Svend Jørgensen. Not only did he count all the samples for his own D.Phil. dissertation on the early Holocene vegetational development

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at Aamosen (Jørgensen, 1963), he also counted all the samples for Troels-Smith on the Swiss ‘pile dwellings’ (Troels-Smith, 1955b) and all those for Henrik Tauber’s 1 work on pollen dispersal (Tauber,

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1977). These are a few of many other studies and it must be remembered that at this time 2000 pollen grains were routinely counted per sample (excluding the often dominant hazel (Corylus avellana)) so for his

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work on Aamosen alone he counted more than 550,000 pollen. Due to the high resolution sampling and high counts he could show that common ivy (Hedera helix) and mistletoe (Viscum album) decreased in the early Atlantic period. He interpreted this as a short-lived climatic cooling naming it ‘The Early Atlantic Climatic Oscillation’ (Jørgensen, 1963), a climatic event which is now better known as the 8.2 ka event. What follows here is a translation of an oral presentation delivered by Troels-Smith to The Royal Danish Society in 1977 and is as close as possible to the original text. No attempt has been made to alter the conversational style of his lecture as was given. Some changes and exceptions have though been necessary to improve readability and references and Latin plant names have been added.

The Egtved Girls Mead Jørgen Troels-Smith

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Henrik Tauber (1921- ). D.Phil., head of the radiocarbon laboratory in Copenhagen

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. 31 March 1977

This lecture focusses on pollen analysis, an important line of work for me, but it will also cover some subjects which are peripheral or even wholly outside those I normally deal with it. My investigations are far from complete and further problems will yet arise than those that have now been solved and if the Academy’s former president Johannes Pedersen2 had not once expressed some years ago that lectures given here did not need to report completed investigations, but simply what one occupies oneself with, I

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would not dare to continue. What I will talk about here is something I have worked on from time to time over the last 35 years or so, so let’s begin at the beginning.

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Forty years ago, in March 1937, Johannes Iversen3 and I presented to the Geological Society of Denmark

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the results of our studies into sea level change in the Stone Age and its relationship to kitchen middens (Iversen, 1937). This presentation prompted Knud Jessen 4 to launch the ‘Third Kitchen Midden

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Commission’. The first, ‘The Lejre Commission’, was established by The Royal Society in 1848 when Forchhammer5 was president and the second in the 1890’s when Sophus Müller6 was president (Madsen et al., 1900). The main focus of both was to clarify the relationship between the youngest hunting cultures

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and the oldest farming cultures in Danish prehistory.

Around Christmas 1939 the Carlsberg Foundation supported this work by awarding two years of funding –

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an award which was repeated many times. For me this was essential in two aspects – I could now work in that which most interested me and also, I could afford to get married. It is not without good reason then

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that I have the greatest gratitude to the Carlsberg Foundation and would like to express my thanks here. My first results on the geology and palaeobotany related to ‘The Dyrholm Find’ were included in Therkel

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Mathiassens7 publication (Mathiassen et al., 1942)(Fig.4).

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It seemed so simple when I first began to learn pollen analysis in 1934 with Iversen, we only had to recognize around 10 different pollen grains and these were of the most common forest trees. Through the 1930’s however, the number of pollen we could identify grew with Tage Nilsson8 in Lund identifying ash (Fraxinus excelsior) and Iversen expanding the list with grasses (Poaceae), sedges (Cyperaceae) and goosefoots (Amaranthaceae) - though at this time only as families. Later some families could be further separated into species such as ribwort plantain (Plantago lanceolata), greater plantain (Plantago major) and sea plantain (Plantago maritima). Iversen and I identified common ivy (Hedera helix) and mistletoe

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Johannes Pedersen (1883-1977). Professor of Philology. Johannes Iversen (1904-1971) D.Phil. Palaeoecology. 4 Knud Jessen (1884-1971). Professor of Botany and Director of the Botanical Garden. 5 Johan Georg Forchhammer (1794 – 1865). Professor of Geology 6 Sophus Müller (1846-1934) Archaeologist. 7 Therkel Mathiassen (1892-1967). D.Phil. in Archaeology 8 Tage Nilsson (1905-1986). Professor of Quaternary Geology 3

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT (Viscum album) together (Iversen 1944) and by this time Firbas9 in Gottingen had shown that the cultivated corn types had large pollen grains (Firbas, 1937) and while working on the Dyrholm Find I had also identified tasselweed (Ruppia) (Mathiassen et al., 1942). This meant that by 1942 we had doubled the number of identifiable pollen to 22 different grains and 10 of these could be identified to species. This was at a time when the Geological Survey of Denmark kept their microscope lenses locked in the safe – they were valuable items!

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There was a significant development in 1941 when the grant from the Carlsberg Foundation was increased meaning that I could employ a co-worker. This was Brorson-Christensen, who I am pleased to see is here

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tonight. He was chosen because of three attributes which were at the time very important in a prospective pollen analyst: he was a beetle specialist, he was a trained artist from the Academy for Fine Arts and must

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therefore have had good observational skills and finally, he personally owned a very good microscope. There could not have been a better choice and we were soon in full swing. But it irritated us both that we

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still encountered unknown pollen types and in the spring of 1942 we took a historic decision: from that time forward all unknown pollen types would be documented with both a precise description and a precise drawing (Fig. 3a, b). Viewed from 35 years later I can see that it was naive to think that two young men in

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their mid-20’s, could get to grips with such a gigantic task. But we did not give it a thought, it was hugely exciting and the concept of time didn’t exist for us – we were much too busy.

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But after a few months Iversen came to visit together with the named applicants to the Carlsberg Foundation award, Therkel Mathiassen and Magnus Degerbøl 10 , – as a student I could obviously not apply

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myself. He was angry, very angry. We had begun a hopeless task and would never complete it in this way! And what would Knud Jessen say if he knew what we were wasting our time on. After many sleepless

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nights I requested and received an audience with Knud Jessen, who was at that time the Director of the Carlsberg Foundation. I argued that the prerequisite for solving the task (of the Third Kitchen Midden

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Commission) was that we knew what the pollen of the earliest cultivated plants and weeds looked like, and that we believed what we were doing would sooner or later have to be done if the technique was to advance. It was greatly comforting that Knud Jessen gave his consent to us continuing what we had started and I remember him saying “before one can reach the Linnean species”, one cannot begin to reach conclusions. It was an immense encouragement.

We kept going and within a few years the results began to pour in. The team was enlarged with the addition of Svend Thorkild Andersen11 and Dr. Svend Jørgensen and we began a very productive collaboration with Iversen. We had increasing success as we prepared pollen slides of modern plants and even more pollen types were identified. As I mentioned, our approach was to draw and describe all

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Franz Firbas (1902-1964). Professor of Botany Magnus Degerbøl (1895-1977). Professor of Zoology 11 Svend Thorkild Andersen (Høsterkøb) (1926-2009). D.Phil. in geology

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT unknown pollen types and we were a good team, checking each other’s observations and sharpening both our observations skills and our understanding of what we saw. It was difficult to remember numbers so the unknown types were all given a name and the more we made modern pollen type slides, the more we identified our unknown pollen grains.

One of the problematic questions related to the so-called ‘rods’, which we now know are small columns that hold the pollen grains’ double wall apart. We thought we might be seeing reflections of the small

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warts on the outer surface and it was an obstacle to our understanding and so we had to solve it. Brorson Christensen borrowed a small microtome from Ordrup Gymnasium, took it apart, sharpened the knives

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and experimented until he found the best mounting material for pollen grains. After a couple of weeks in 1943 - 1944 he successfully sliced through a pollen grain of a tansy plant (Tanacetum vulgare) (Christensen,

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1949). The pollen was sliced to less than 1/1000 mm and he may have been the first person to ever achieve

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this. This work solved the problem – there were columns separating the pollen walls (Fig.5a, b).

Another difficulty was that the pollen grains varied in size depending on both the sediment type from which they were extracted and on which chemical treatment was used. We ran a large number of

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experiments to find out how much a pollen grain could contract and expand – and it was a lot. For example, hazel pollen (Corylus avellana) of around 23µm could double in size to 46µm with the uptake of water. We found this unbearable and even worse, different species had different expansion ratios. For

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example, hazel keeps on expanding after charlock (Sinapis arvensis) has run out of steam. It was thus necessary to include hazel pollen in the modern reference slides to act as a measurement standard so that

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the size of both the unknown and known pollen types could be calculated as a percentage of hazel. With this we had a reliable basis for assessing the relative size ratio and we could be secure in our identification

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of the cultivated pollen types.

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While we were working on the very precise descriptions of the pollen it soon became clear that we needed a fixed terminology, as it was all too easy to fall back on slang terms. There was limited literature on the features of the pollen grain and it was often inadequate and confusing and what is more, we at the National Museum had one set of jargon, while Iversen had another. In short, it was necessary to develop pollen morphological definitions and terms so that we could unambiguously know what we all meant. It took 7 years and resulted in 18 small printed pages with a preface and a register (Iversen and Troels-Smith, 1950).

I have twice in my life reached the furthest limits of my endurance, physically while felling trees in Draved Forest with a ground flint axe and mentally while together with Iversen preparing ‘Pollen morphological definitions and types’ (Iversen and Troels-Smith, 1950).

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT We managed with relatively few descriptive elements (ca. 70) to accommodate all the attributes essential for the identification of the pollen of flowering plants. There have since been published numerous other pollen morphologies but this little book is still comprehensive. It is worth mentioning here that a few years ago while giving lectures in Cambridge, I met a young and very capable pollen analyst called John Birks12 . He was testing many pollen morphological terminologies to use in data processing but found that ours was the most useful. This was very pleasing to hear. In return I could tell him that the punch card system we had developed had been very difficult to produce. It was not possible to buy them at the end of the 1940s

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and we had to invest in having one specially made – and it was expensive (Fig. 6). The funny thing was that when we were finished with the punch card system for the ‘X’ pollen we did not use it, as by that time we

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knew the 500 – 600 pollen types and remembered their names and features.

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In 1948 Brorson-Christensen left us to become a conservator and solve problems connected to wood conservation and in the beginning of the 1950s the identification of new pollen slowed down. Since that

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time we have, for the most part, worked using the basic research produced in the decade between 1942 and 1952. By reviewing the most important papers published by the National Museums Natural Science Unit (NNU) I can demonstrate how much was achieved since 1942, when we could identify 22 pollen types

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with 10 to species. This number has now risen to around 120 identified to species, around 130 identified to genus and 19 only to family. In addition, there are 115 types which can be identified as belonging to a limited number of species or closely related families bringing the total to almost 400 taxa, but as much is

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yet to be published the number is actually even greater. The main results from this work were preliminarily published in 1954 and 1955 (Troels-Smith, 1953, 1955b) and demonstrated 3 different forms of farming

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cultures in Europe during the first half of the late Stone Age: 1) foliage based with barn -fed cattle and small permanently cultivated fields, 2) rotational slash and burn with free roaming cattle and 3) permanent

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agriculture with extended permanent grazing.

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And now to The Egtved Girl’s Mead. In the summer of 1943 there was a clay pot found in Aamosen belonging to the oldest part of the late Neolithic and in the lowest layer of the deposit within the pot we found ‘X’ pollen, which because of its beauty was given the name ‘Solvej’ (I was reading Henrik Ibsen 13 at the time). Shortly before Christmas 1943 we made a modern pollen reference slide of the common grape vine (Vitis vinifera) and we could see that ‘Solvej’ was identical (Fig. 7). It has not been possible to show whether it is the wild form (Vitis silvestris) or the cultivated form (Vitis vinifera) but which ever it is, and this was later confirmed with further pollen, it means that the average July temperatures around 3000 4000 BC must have reached at least 20C – significantly higher than the 16C average we have today. I knew Bille Gram’s14 work on the remains from the birch bark bucket from the Egtved Girl ’s coffin and knew that it was a type of honeyed beer, with cowberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) or cranberry (Vaccinium

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John B. Birks (1945 -). Professor of Quantitative Palaeoecology Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) Norwegian author 14 J. Bille Gram (1857-1934) Professor of Pharmacognosy 13

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT oxycoccos). But why should they not also have used grapes – it was worth looking at. This is why I have periodically studied The Egtved Girls Mead and its associated problems. But let us look closer at the Egtved Girl find itself (Fig 6.). The Egtved Girl was born over 3000 years ago, around 1200 – 1400 BC15, and buried in a oak coffin near Egtved around 20 years later (Thomsen, 1929). The lid was lifted from the coffin in 1921. She was lain dressed in a corded skirt, a short sleeved blouse and covered with a fresh cow hide – possibly the hide of

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the animal slaughtered for an offering and a feast for the dead. Flowers of yarrow (Achillea millefolium) were laid next to her knee immediately before she was covered by the hide and a birch bark bucket was

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placed near her feet before the coffin lid was put in place. The bucket contained a fermented drink, possibly the same as that drunk at the wake (Fig.8a, b). But what did she look like? She was about 160 cm

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tall, with a leg length of 74 cm, 65 cm from the shoulder to fingertips and a waist measurement of only about 60 cm. The bones have not survived but the skin, hair and nails are well preserved. The finger and

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toe nails were clipped short and rounded and her armpits, like the Skrydstrupkvinde, were probably shaved.

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Bille Gram had examined the crusted deposits in the base of the Egtved birch bark bucket in the beginning of the 1920’s (Thomsen, 1929). In the available description he states “the examination identifies cowberry or cranberry, some cereal grain (bread wheat (Triticum)), glandular hairs of bog myrtle (Myrica gale) along

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with a large amount of pollen, including small-leafed lime (Tilia). The deposit is thus the dried remains of a drink. It differs to those I have had occasion to examine previously in the large amount of pollen, which

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shows the use of honey in its preparation”. Bille Gram’s mention of previous studies refers to his examination of a drink from the Juellinge Find from the centuries after Christ’s birth in the Roman Iron Age

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(Bille Gram, 1911). This was quite simply a beer made from barley (Hordeum) with either cowberry or cranberry and a large amount of bog myrtle. I saw numerous pollen of barley and bog myrtle when I

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analysed the Juellinge material for pollen. But it is peculiar to note when considering the glandular hairs of bog myrtle found by Bille Gram that there was not found a single pollen grain of bog myrtle in the thousands of pollen counted from the Egtved bucket.

There was not any grape pollen, which was my main reason for looking at the material, but there was much else found that can contribute to our knowledge of the vegetation in the earliest Bronze Age assuming, as is mostly likely, that it was the local Danish honey that was used. Thousands of pollen grains were counted and 55 different types were identified, of these 11 were identified to species, 22 to genus and 8 to family whilst 14 were unknown. The pollen is mostly from insect pollenated plants and as we most often work with wind pollinated species, along with local aquatic and wetland plants, it is not surprising that there were for me, many unknown taxa.

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Dendrochronology dates the burial to 1370 BC (Christensen et al 2007)

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT The four plants with the most common occurrence and making up around 66% of the taxa, are meadowsweet (Filipendula), white clover (Trifolium repens), small-leaved lime and pollen from the crucifer family (Brassicaceae) – possibly charlock (Sinapis arvensis). Those contributing more than 1% are sheep’s bit (Jasione montana), black nightshade (Solanum nigrum), St. John’s Wort (Hypericum), wild garlic (Allium ursinum), bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) with a little more doubtful identifications of mullein (Verbascum), thyme (Thymus) and lady’s bedstraw (Galium verum) along with a possible wolf’s bane

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(Arnica montana), a type of daisy which grows on heaths, forested slopes etc.

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But let us see which plant communities are represented:

Forest trees: oak (Quercus), small-leaved lime, maple (Acer), alder (Alnus) and birch (Betula).

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Shrubs: hazel, alder buckthorn (Frangula alnus) and willow (Salix). Climbing: common ivy (Hedera helix)

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Cultivated soil: bread wheat, corn spurrey (Spergula arvensis), black nightshade, knotgrass (Polygonum), field pansy (Viola arvensis), hemp-nettle (Galeopsis), and crucifers (Brassicaceae), possibly charlock (Sinapis arvensis).

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Pastures: heather (Calluna vulgaris), wormwood (Artemisia), sheep’s bit, ribwort plantain (Plantago lanceolata), sorrel (Rumex), white clover, burnet-saxifrage (Pimpinella), lady’s bedstraw. Meadows: wild garlic, anemone (Anemone), willowherb (Epilobium), St. John’s Wort, hogweed

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(Heracleum), valerian (Valeriana), mullein and raspberry (Rubus idaeus).

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The image that emerges when one sees such a plant spectrum is a distinctly cultural landscape heavily influenced by people. With small groves or minor forest groves, oak trees in open land, hazel thickets and

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more acidic areas with alder buckthorn. There are cultivated bread wheat fields, sprawling pastures with free grazing sheep and cows, with some shelter for the cattle, and with wild garlic and St. John’s Wort

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thriving in the open forest and on its edges. Even though this is what one would might expect, given our extreme lack of knowledge of Bronze Age vegetation this study must be said to be a very welcome contribution.

Before I talk about the drink in the Egtved Girls bark bucket I will briefly describe other finds from the early Bronze Age which are interesting in relation to it. Two are from Denmark and one from Scotland. A n oak coffin burial with the skeletal remains of a mature, well-built man with two bronze swords was found in the mid 1930’s on Mors, near Nandrup (unpublished). A clay pot was also found which must have been around two-thirds full of something that had left a grey black, hard deposit. The deposit was analysed by Iversen in 1938 and he found a large amount of small-leaved lime (Tilia) pollen and several unknown pollen types. He concluded that there had been lime blossom honey in the pot (unpublished). I have re-examined a sample and in a preliminary analysis have found around 90% lime, 8% meadowsweet and 2% white clover

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT along with hazel, heather, ribwort plantain, anemone and pollen from others such as the carrot (Apiaceae), the mint (Lamiaceae) and the daisy (Asteraceae) families.

Another oak coffin burial from Bregninge, western Sjælland is also of the early Bronze Age (Nielsen, 1988). No identifiable bones were found in the grave but a bronze sword and flanged axe indicates it was probably a man. Additionally, there was a clay pot with a dark coloured deposit in the bottom. The deposit had pollen mainly from meadowsweet, two types of daisy, lime and white clover along with knotgrass,

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ribwort plantain and pollen from the Pink family (Caryophyllaceae).

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Finally, there has recently been published a study of a stone coffin found in Scotland from the early Bronze Age and radiocarbon dated to ca. 1100 BC (Dickson, 1978). In this male grave there was found a bronze

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dagger but also an overturned clay pot and close to the man’s chest, a large amount of sphagnum moss from which pollen was analysed in Cambridge. The moss contained 54% lime, 15% meadowsweet, 8 %

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heather family (Ericaceae), 7% ribwort plantain and 5% pollen from the mint family along with a scabious (Scabiosa), buttercups (Ranunculaceae), pollen from the daisy family, holly ( Ilex) and willow. It is

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reasonable to suppose that these types were also the type s originally in the overturned pot.

So now we have four finds from the early Bronze Age with pots containing something with honey in them – of this, there can be no doubt. But there is a distinct difference between the contents of the Egtved Girl’s

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bark bucket and the three clay pots from the male graves. While the bark bucket contained plant fibres which even in a desiccated state were light in colour and porous, the material in the Danish clay pots was

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dark in colour and hard. It is not possible to know what the Scottish deposit looked like as the honey pollen was found in the moss. It is certain that the drink from Egtved was a mixture of beer, fruit wine and honey,

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possibly as a mead, with many plant fibres of bread wheat and cowberry or cranberry. On the other hand, the three male graves contained pure honey and that most likely as a mead. The drink that, according to

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the old saying, “makes one fertile and gives you a long and pleasant life!”

But let us look generally at the occurrence of fermented drinks in prehistory. There are broadly three geographic regions with each its preferred drink. In Mesopotamia and Egypt one drank beer with the addition of bitter elements, in the Mediterranean region, one drank wine made from grapes and finally in the Indo-European strains, there was a fondness for mead. The similarity between the words for honey and mead in many Indo-European language groups clearly shows a shared knowledge of these superior goods. It is also interesting to note that the name for beer within the northern Indo-European region, ‘bier’ or ‘ale’ actually has its roots in honey and mead. The English ‘ale’ in the Anglo-Saxon was called ‘ealu’ and written in runes on a Danish fibula from the Roman Iron Age is the word ‘aulugod’. In Old Prussian ‘alu’ simply means mead. It is similar to the word ‘bier’ which in its ancient form is ‘beor’ or ‘biuza’. Hilda Ransome (1937) suggests this stems from ‘beo’, the Saxon word for bee and ‘avesa’ the word for juice or drink, that is, bee juice.

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT There is much to indicate that the drink from Egtved was mead diluted with a form of fermented grain, that is, beer. This is described by Pytheus, who lived in the 4th century BC and who described an unpleasant drink of honey and grain (wheat or barley) produced by the people around the River Ems (northern Germany and the Netherlands). It is reasonable to suppose that this same drink was drunk at her wake whereas the real thing, the strong mead, was reserved for the chieftain as a grave good.

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There is much more that could be said about mead, but I would also like to talk about Soma. My interest in this drink goes back to my time as a student when I lived together with a theologian called Gregersen who

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at that time was very engrossed in the newly discovered Ras-Shaf texts and the Rigveda. The Rigveda is a collection of 1028 hymns within which not less than 120 are devoted to a plant god named ’Soma’. These

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hymns probably date back to ca. 2000 BC and at least to 1200 – 1400 BC though they were not transcribed until much later. They are written in an Indo-European language belonging to a tribe which migrated into

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the Indus Valley. The word ‘Soma’ has been known in Western Europe for almost 200 years and both philologists and religious historians have attempted to discover which plant it is. I remember that at the time I thought about Ephedra (Ephedra sinica) and the effects of ephedrine. It was therefore very

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interesting for me a few years ago to settle down with a thick book that Jes Asmussen 16 had told me about – R. Gordon Wasson’s book on Soma (Wasson, 1968). The author was an American banker and a multimillionaire and had earned so much by the age of 50 that could afford to devote himself to his interest in

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myco-ethnobotany. He had married into this interest. His wife was Russian and like most Slav people was very interested in fungi, not only enjoying eating them but also with a thorough knowledge of them learnt

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from childhood. On the other hand, Wasson, like many Europeans and Americans was almost terrified by the thought of eating fungi and with the exception of mushrooms, regarded all fungi as essentially

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poisonous. They could easily have spent many years arguing but instead they started to research into why some cultures love and honour fungi and others turn away from them in disgust. The results were

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published in this large and beautiful book with the conclusion that fungi were for some reason taboo in Indo-European cultures. Wasson then turned his attention to what Soma could be and concluded, in close collaboration with linguists, that the Soma plant was the Fly agaric (Amanita muscaria). Now it would not surprise me if most of you here know the Fly agaric and are thinking that it is extremely toxic! The truth is that one can eat several fungi without anything more than nausea but there are very few who know of the extremely poisonous death cap (Amanita phalloides)!

Before describing further Wasson’s argument, I will briefly describe the agarics (Amanita genus) which only grow together with pine (Pinus) or birch (Betula). The ingestion of agarics causes hallucinations with one feeling oneself in a happy and god-like state. And until recently was used at cultish celebrations among the Samoyedic and other Siberian people. Of note is that the hallucinogenic agents are excreted in urine and

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Probably Jes Peter Asmussen (1928 – 2002). Professor of Iranian Philology.

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT are still active even after passing through 3-4 people. Wasson’s line of reasoning is as follows. There is no mention of Soma’s roots, leaves, flowers, seeds or fruits even though the people who wrote the hymns knew about agriculture, flowers and seeds. As Soma is pressed up to 3 times in the same day and then drunk with the desired effect it cannot be an alcoholic drink either. If it is assumed that Soma is the Fly agaric, then the description fits remarkably well. I will give a few examples. Soma grew in the mountains and was highly valued being traded with foreign mountain dwellers for cattle. Fly agaric is not found until thousands of meters up out of the Indus Valley in the Himalaya Mountains where the required birch and

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pine forests grow. Taken together, I am convinced that Wasson is correct in his interpretation. But there are others who have also read his book. An Englishman called Kaplan wrote in the journal ‘Man’, (Kaplan,

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1975) about the similarity between certain images on Bronze Age razors and rock engravings of toadstools.

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If one visualizes fungi sliced, which one would probably do prior to pressing, the similarity is then striking.

We have now come around to the beginning again, the problem is no longer one of the identification of

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pollen, but with the identification of fungi. The drinking of Soma causes nausea and is therefore drunk together with milk, soured milk, mead or honey. So the proof that agarics were used in the Bronze Age must be found through their spores contained within, for example, the deposits leftover from Bronze Age

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drinks. But spore identification is completely unknown ground and maybe that will become another story.

J. Troels-Smith

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31st March 1977

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Conclusion

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The transcription of the lecture held in the archive ends rather abruptly but we can assume that Troels Smith concluded with further thanks to the foundations for the past funding which had made all this work possible. Representatives from these foundations were most likely in the audience and i t may be that his

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discussion of the next big development (the identification of spores) was an appeal for future funding. Troels-Smiths lecture from 1977 gives a rare first hand description from one of the pioneers shaping and developing pollen analysis through the 1930s and 1940s. The language is informal and gives a unique portrait of some of the scientists themselves, their working methods and their thoughts and considerations. The work of Troels-Smith, his collaborators and his colleagues in documenting and identifying the different pollen types, in the detailing of internal structure and in the development of a universal terminology are some of the building blocks upon which modern palynology is based. We may know many of the people mentioned in the lecture through their work, but fewer and fewer of us will have had the opportunity to meet them and discuss their ideas and motivations and this lecture transcript gives an insight into how little was known in the early days, and how far they came. Acknowledgements

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT We thank two anonymous reviewers for comments and suggestions which have improved this manuscript.

Figure text

Fig.1a. Jørgen Troels-Smith photographed when he first became a member of Videnskabernes Selvskab (The Royal Academy) in 1961. Fig.1b. Troels-Smith, Svend Jørgensen and Bent Fredskild at the microscopes in the National Museums Bog

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Laboratory. Behind them can be seen the secretary who rewrote the count sheets and calculated pollen percentages.

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Fig.2a. Brorson-Christensen (1960).

Fig.2b. Svend Jørgensen during the excavation of the Kongemose site (1956) .

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Fig.3a. Valerian. “A large triple lobed pollen of the Quercus type. The surface structures fall into 4 distinct groups: 1. Tilia-like pearly dots due to the so called “struts”, 2. quite small, sharply delimited warts which

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are widely spread, 3. large, bowl or dome shaped warts or bumps. Described in a few words: the pollen grain looks like it is closely populated by small, freckled women’s breasts.” (Brorson-Christensen 1944). Fig.3b. Lythrum salicaria (Brorson-Christensen 1943).

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Fig.4. Troels-Smiths first pollen diagram from Dyrholm on Djursland, eastern Denmark. The diagram shows the first identification of the pollen of Ruppia.

Fig.5a. Drawings of different pollen thin sections (Brorson-Christensen 1949).

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Fig.5b. Section of Chrysanthemum vulgare pollen (Brorson-Christensen). Fig.6. Punch cards to aid the identification of pollen types (Vitis pollen shown here). The punch cards were

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hung on rows of metal rods which each represented a pollen characteristic. To identify an unknown pollen

out.

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grain the rods were pulled out for each particular characteristic and the card for the identif ied pollen fell

Fig.7. Drawing of a Vitis pollen grain found in a ceramic pot from the early part of the Neolithic, Aamosen.

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Fig.8a. Egtved girls oak coffin exposed during the excavation in 1921. Fig.8b. The Egtved girls bark bucket which contained a honey-sweetened mead.

References

Bille Gram, J., 1911. Mikroskopiske Undersøgelser af 'Juellinge-Fundet'. Nordiske Fortidsminder II, 40. Christensen, B.B., 1946. Measurement as a Means of Identifying Fossil Pollen. Dansk Geologiske Undersøgelse IV, 3, 1-22. Christensen, B.B., 1949. Om mikrotomsnit ad pollenexiner. Meddelelser fra Dansk Geologisk Forening 11, 441-444. Christensen, B.B., 1970. The conservation of waterlogged wood in the National Museum of Denmark Viking Ship Museum. Christensen, K., Eckstein, D., Schmidt, B., 2007. Bronze Age oak coffins in Denmark and North Germany Dendrochronological dating and archaeological implications. Dickson, J.H., 1978. Bronze age mead. Antiquity 52, 108-113. Edwards, K.J., 2016. A biographical, autobiographical and oral history initiative, Centenary (1916-2016) of Pollen Analysis and the Legacy of Lennart von Post. Swedish Academy of Sciences (24-25th November 2016), Stockholm. Firbas, F., 1937. Der pollenanalytische Nachweis des Getreidebaus. Zeitschrift für Botanik 31, 447-478. Iversen, J., 1937. Undersøgelser over Litorinatransgressioner i Danmark. Meddelelser fra Dansk Geologisk Forening 9, 223-232.

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Iversen, J., Troels-Smith, J., 1950. Pollenmorfologiske definitioner og typer. Danmarks Geologiske Undersøgelse IV 3, 1-54. Jørgensen, S., 1963. Early Postglacial in Aamosen. Geological and Pollen -Analytical Investigations of Maglemosian Settlements in the West-Zealand Bog Aamosen. Danmarks Geologiske Undersøgelse II, 87 II, 36. Kaplan, R.W., 1975. The Sacred Mushroom in Scandinavia. Man 10, 72-79. Madsen, A.P., Müller, S., Neergaard, C., Petersen, C.G.J., Rostrup, E., Steenstrup, K.J.V., Winge, H., 1900. Affaldsdynger fra Stenalder i Danmark, undersøgt for Nationalmuseet (med Fransk resumé). Udgivet på Carlsbergfondets bekostning. Paris, Hachette, A.A. Mathiassen, T.F., Degerbøl, M., Troels -Smith, J., 1942. Dyrholmen : en Stenalderboplads paa Djursland. Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskabs Skrifter. Arkæologisk-kunsthistoriske Skrifter 1, 1-212. Nielsen, S., 1988. Bronzealdergravene Fra Bregninge. Antikvariske Studier 2, 15-34. Ransome, H., 1937. The sacred bee in ancient times and folklore. London: George Allen and Unwin. Tauber, H., 1977. Investigations of Aerial Pollen Transport in a Forested Area. Dansk Botanisk Arkiv 32, 9-121. Thomsen, T., 1929. Egekistfundet fra Egtved fra den Aeldere Bronze Alder. Nordiske Fortidsminder 2, 165-214. Troels-Smith, J., 1953. Ertebøllekultur - Bondekultur. Resultater af de sidste 10 års undersøgelser i Aamosen. Aarboger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie, 5-62. Troels-Smith, J., 1955a. Karakterisering af løse jordarter. Danmarks Geologiske Undersøgelse IV 3 (10). Troels-Smith, J., 1955b. Pollenanalytische untersuchungen zu einigen schweizerischen p fahlbauproblemen, in: Guyan, v.W.U., Levi, H., Ludi, W., Speck, J., Tauber, H., Troels -Smith, J., Vogt, E., Welten, M. (Eds.), Das Pfahlbauproblem. Basel: Birkhäuser, 11-58. Wasson, G.R., 1968. Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality. The Hague: Mouton.

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